Different directions or the same route? The varied identities of ride-share drivers

Abstract

In this article we draw on personal narratives to study the identity work conducted by ride-share drivers to make sense of their occupational identity that is made problematic by the ambiguity of their legal classification and the precarious nature of their material conditions. Our contribution is twofold. First, we reveal the specificity of the identity work conducted by gig workers in comparison to other groups of workers such as employees and independent workers. We uncover the narratives that gig workers use to construct a coherent discourse that accommodates the trade-offs that their occupation involves. Second, we provide an understanding of the experience of gig workers. We adopt the term ‘sub-entrepreneur’ to refer to a type of independent contractor who experiences less freedom than those with true entrepreneurial scope and autonomy in their work. This definition assists in our reflection on our findings in relation to the future of gig workers, gig work and gig platforms.

Keywords

Gig work identity ride-share self-employment sub-entrepreneur

The digitally enabled economy has become of increasing interest to policymakers and researchers and part of the broader debate about the future of work (Hajkowicz et al., 2016). From an initial focus on the implications of what was being called ‘the sharing economy’ (Sundararajan, 2016), attention has shifted to a more specific emphasis on the impact of digital disruption on job quality (Mako et al., 2016; Warhurst et al., 2017), existing labour markets (Fabo et al., 2017; Hall and Krueger, 2018; Schor, 2017), historical antecedents (Alkatib et al., 2017; Stanford, 2017), collectivism (Minter, 2017) and employment regulation (De Stefano, 2016; Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Despite the increase in academic interest, the ‘newness’ of digitally enabled work means that contributions are still patchy and dispersed across disciplines. However, concerns have been raised that gig work may result in a hyper-competitive labour market in which workers are forced to undermine each other, ‘precipitating a “race to the bottom” on wages and other performance expectations’ (Healy et al., 2017: 236).

There is a clear motivation for digital platforms to propagate and defend the categorisation of workers engaged by these platforms as self-employed. What is less obvious is how gig workers respond to this positioning and make sense of their own experience. This article begins to answer these questions by reporting on research conducted with ride-share drivers in Australia – specifically, personal narratives collected through interviews. We explore the identity work conducted by gig workers in the ride-sharing industry to construct coherent narratives that reconcile their legal employment classification, their occupational identity and the materiality of their ride-sharing activity – where identity work is defined as people’s engagement ‘in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a sense of coherence and distinctiveness’ (Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003: 1165). First, we contribute by revealing the specificity of the identity work conducted by gig workers in comparison to other groups of workers. We uncover the narratives that gig workers use to construct a coherent discourse that accommodates the trade-offs that their occupation involves. They develop three specific narratives of dissociation, rationalisation and distantiation to deal with the ambiguity of their legal classification. They also develop four specific self-narratives that allow them to construct a positive representation of gig work by making it a temporary episode; we captured these four self-narratives under the personas of the optimist, the hobbyist, the entrepreneur and the disenchanted. Second, the narratives we collected provide an understanding of the experience of gig workers. We adopt the term ‘sub-entrepreneur’ – a type of independent contractor who experiences less freedom than those with true entrepreneurial scope and autonomy in their work – to reflect on the implications of our findings in relation to the future of gig workers and gig work and the place of gig platforms in society.

To contextualise the research and its implications a brief survey of relevant literature on the classification of gig work and occupational identity will be provided. The method and the results of our interrogation of the narratives will follow and inform our discussion of the different ways in which this cohort of gig workers identifies with the trope of entrepreneurism. Far from confirming the enthusiasm for independent contracting that Dubal (2017) witnessed in the American taxi industry, our study of Australian ride-sharing drivers shows that the normalisation and further diffusion of this model should not be taken for granted.

Literature review

Entrepreneurs or employees? A disputed legal status for gig workers

Extant literature has covered the link between the current legal framework of industrial relations in Australia and the lobbying activities of big business to undermine unions and the independent umpire, resulting in a system that has more or less ingested the main tenets of neoliberalism (Cooper and Ellem, 2008, 2011; Kaine and Wright, 2013). One manifestation of this is the determined effort of employers (across a variety of sectors, for example contract cleaning, construction, telecommunications, personal care) to misclassify employees as independent contractors by engaging in ‘sham contracting’ (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2017). This has been amplified in the digital platform economy where there has been a proliferation of terminology designed to obscure the employment relationship by referring to workers with terms such as ‘partners, contributors, taskers, and solvers’ (Sholtz, 2017: 49).

The willingness to manipulate definitions of employees or independent contractors, and the financial benefits to organisations in doing so, has seen prominent digital platform operators in the ‘gig’ economy aggressively position themselves as providers of technology, not of services. Consequently, they have very heavily engaged in marketing themselves as providing opportunities for people to be entrepreneurial (Deliveroo, 2018) and ‘be their own boss’ (Uber, 2018: 8; see also Airtasker, n.d.). For instance, in the face of legal action around the world (BBC, 2017; Ross, 2015; Tomassetti, 2016) Uber has steadfastly asserted that the relationship it has with its drivers is at arm’s length, that it is a tech company and not a direct service provider (Uber, 2018). Prassl (2018) notes that ‘For nearly all platforms, the idea that they are providing technology to facilitate micro-entrepreneurs’ businesses – rather than telling them what to do – is the sine qua non of their business model’ (p. 49).

While there are jurisdictional differences, the applicability of existing employment regulation to gig work is an issue being considered internationally. In the United Kingdom, the ‘Taylor review of modern working practices’ (Taylor, 2017) contained a seven-step plan to ‘fair and decent work’. The second of these directly addresses the issue of legal definitions, suggesting greater clarity around the category of ‘dependent contractor’ to ‘distinguish [these] workers from those who are legitimately self-employed’ (Taylor, 2017: 9). Likewise, in the United States, attention has turned to how workers are categorised. Harris and Krueger (2015) propose a new legal category of ‘independent worker’, which, they argue, is necessary in order to overcome the employee versus independent contractor dichotomy that does not fit well with work relationships in the digital gig economy. Beyond the academic and policy proposals, legal challenges to the misclassification of gig workers have been taken up by unions around the world. Such a case in the United Kingdom in 2016 resulted in Uber drivers being reclassified as ‘workers’ rather than independent contractors, resulting in them gaining access to conditions including minimum wages and holiday pay (Johnston and Land-Kazlauskas, 2018), and, although challenged by Uber, this decision was upheld in 2018 (Besser, 2018).

The issue has particular significance in Australia as a select committee of the Federal Senate was convened in 2018 on ‘The Future of Work and Workers’. The Senate Committee recommended that ‘the Australian Government make legislative amendments that broaden the definition of employee to capture gig workers and ensure that they have full access to protection under Australia’s industrial relations system’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2018: viii).

These ongoing debates about employment classification of gig workers create a disputed landscape that constitutes the backdrop of the identity work conducted by gig workers.

Studying the identity work of gig workers

While policy interest in the question of how workers experience their ‘gig work’ is growing, so far it has not been translated into academic research. A notable exception is the study by Dubal (2017) showing how migrants in the more traditional taxi industry in the United States have constructed over time an identity of independent contractor, which helps them deal with an occupation that she describes as one of working-class entrepreneur; they are thus able to develop a positive narrative about their occupation which integrates their legal status as a contractor.

However, we do not know much about the identity work conducted by other categories of workers in this quickly evolving ride-sharing activity. While Dubal’s (2017) study represents a first attempt at describing how self-employed taxi drivers (with many similarities to ride-share drivers in the digital economy) make sense of their occupational and legal identities, it is likely that the narratives developed by workers in the gig economy in different labour markets will significantly deviate from the positive appropriation observed with migrant taxi drivers in the United States, for two reasons. First, as the gig economy expands, associated with attempts at normalising and further diffusing a model of self-employed contractors propagated by digital platforms, it attracts a diverse workforce that ranges from students to retirees and includes migrant workers but also local workers with various levels of qualification (Broughton et al., 2018). Also, the US labour market is very specific and characterised by low statutory minimums and a proportion of the labour market that lives in poverty despite being employed (Center for Poverty Research, n.d.). Second, the nature of control exercised over workers by digital platforms challenges characteristics traditionally associated with independent contracting, especially in the taxi industry. Esbenshade et al. (2018: 2) argues that ‘Independent contracting [IC] is particularly problematic when workers do not have the actual autonomy or economic independence that legally defines the IC designation’. While Esbenshade’s study focuses on a specific regulation that deprived taxi drivers from such autonomy and independence, her observation that ‘Misclassified workers are doubly disadvantaged by a lack of protections and an absence of control’ resonates in the digital platform economy – particularly the absence of control. For example, while being referred to as ‘partner-drivers’, and despite Uber vigorously asserting their independent contractor status, Uber drivers are subject to continuous surveillance and stringent controls over how they perform their work. Algorithmic determination of work distribution, and the monitoring of the quality and quantity of work via smartphone applications, dominates the management of Uber drivers and other gig workers (Popescu et al., 2018; Prassl, 2018). Many gig workers, particularly in the transport and delivery sectors, experience a lack of control over their work that is traditionally associated with direct employment; specifically, ‘predetermined rates of pay, clothing and grooming requirements, and other performance criteria’ (Healy et al., 2017: 234).

The question of the identity work conducted by other categories of workers in ride-sharing activity is an important topic, since we know that independent workers who cannot develop a positive narrative about their occupational identity face ‘chronic uncertainty about securing social and financial recognition, as well as about the stability and meaning of their work identities’ (Petriglieri et al., 2018: 2). To avoid such uncertainty, individuals conduct identity work. Core to the ongoing process of identity work is the production of narratives (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010) through which individuals story themselves and their experience of work in an attempt to maintain a self-narrative that continues to offer them a sense of ontological security (Giddens, 1991). That is to say that ‘people are continuously engaged in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a precarious sense of coherence and distinctiveness’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002: 626). To do so, individuals use available discursive resources to which they add small stories to create new narratives (Watson, 2009). Key to our understanding of identity work is our comprehension of how individuals bridge ‘self-identities and wider discourses’ (Watson, 2008: 140). In the case of gig workers, available discursive resources include those associated with their legal classification or the entrepreneurial discourse provided by platform businesses; however, these are often not convergent with their work experience, thus making it difficult for them to construct a coherent narrative.

Contrasting the identity work of gig workers, independent contractors and employees

Independent workers, in general, face specific challenges in crafting work identities. One important reason for this is that they do not operate within an organisation in the same way as an employee with more direct organisational ties.

In general terms, work-related or occupational identities refer to ‘aspects of identity and self-definition that are tied to participation in the activities of work or membership in work-related groups, organizations, occupations, or professions’ (Dutton et al., 2010: 266). Identity work in relation to occupational identity has been well studied over more than a decade for organisational participants in standard employment relationships. Organisational participants are able to conduct identity work by relying on existing organisational discursive resources (Watson, 2008). In turn, it allows them to produce a discourse that helps them maintain their self-esteem (Petriglieri et al., 2018). Of course, this does not mean that they unconditionally adopt organisational discourses; indeed, identity work is active and individuals ‘make inputs into social-identities: they have scope to interpret or even modify the role given to them in the “script” of any given social-identity’ (Watson, 2008: 129).

In contrast, independent workers are in a situation where ‘the availability of institutionalized frameworks to orient their identity work is, at best, elusive’ (Petriglieri et al., 2018: 2). Even the highly qualified independent workers, such as writers, consultants and artists studied by Petriglieri et al. (2018), struggle to maintain a coherent sense of self and experience stark tensions in the absence of organisational or professional membership. Lacking the resources provided by an organisational context, these independent workers conduct identity work that helps them to create their own holding environment by developing a sense of connection with ‘routines, places, people and a broader purpose’. However, Petriglieri et al. (2018) underline that they studied independent workers who had plenty of opportunity for personal expression in their work and that the experience of precariousness might be very different for workers engaged in production or service work.

Indeed, while the need to reconnect to a ‘holding environment’ (Petriglieri et al., 2018) might still be a concern for gig workers, the difficulties are even more chronic and salient for gig workers such as ride-share drivers or Deliveroo bicycle riders for whom there are fewer professional identifiers associated with their work. In their case, the production of a positive narrative regarding their occupational identity is made even more problematic by the ambiguity of their legal classification (Dubal, 2017) and by the even more precarious nature of their material conditions. In such a context, the question of how such workers can produce narratives that make ‘precariousness tolerable, in that one has enough capacity to keep working through it’ (Petriglieri et al., 2018: 30) remains unanswered; especially knowing that ‘when people lose the connections that hold them, their precariousness becomes intolerable and their efforts feel futile’ (p. 2018: 30). In such contexts, identity work aimed at maintaining ‘a sense of coherence and distinctiveness’ (Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003: 1165) is crucial and challenging but also unexplored.

In our study of the identity work conducted by gig workers, we adopt a fluid conception of ‘identity’, where we accept that identities are subjectively constructed and can be best captured through the narratives produced by individuals when trying to make sense of themselves in a social and material context (Brown and Coupland, 2015). In that sense, we distinguish ourselves from more entitative conceptions of identity-characterising functionalist approaches and embrace a dynamic view of identity (Bardon et al., 2012), aiming to capture identity narratives that are expressions of how research participants make sense of their social contexts such as, in our case, their occupational and legal identity. Our perspective conforms to an interpretive post-structuralist reading of identity that ‘integrates a broad socio-material conception of discourse’ and an ‘interpretive approach that understands how individuals make sense of identity’ (Bardon et al., 2012: 352). Indeed, observing how gig workers conduct identity work requires a consideration not only of their social conditions but also of the especially constraining material conditions of their occupation.

Overall, many gig workers have to struggle with a combination of blurry legal employment classification and socially and materially fragile occupational identity, which can be conducive to high uncertainty. Accordingly, our study aims to explore how gig workers make sense of their legal employment classification and their occupational identity and the identity work they conduct to produce narratives that associate these two elements with the material experience of their occupation.

Method

We explored the identity work conducted by Australian gig workers in the ride-sharing industry to construct coherent narratives that reconcile their legal employment classification, their occupational identity and the materiality of their ride-sharing activity. Ride-sharing is a relatively new phenomenon in which owners of private vehicles offer transport to passengers for a fee, mediated via a smartphone application. The company whose application controls the largest part of the Australian market is Uber, which has been operating in Australian markets since 2012. Its initial operations were considered illegal as it was seen to be circumventing the barriers to entry previously imposed on the highly regulated taxi industry. Recent modelling on the net hourly wage received by Uber drivers (minus Uber’s commission, capital costs and unpaid waiting time) across Australia is A$14.62 – which is below the national minimum wage (see Stanford, 2018, for full calculations and model).

Data collection

Data collection for this study was conducted as part of a broader study of the ride-sharing industry in Australia. We supplemented an initial online survey of ride-share drivers (not reported here) with 21 interviews (referenced as E1–E21) with ride-share drivers located in major cities across Australia. When contacting them we assured them that the results would be fully anonymous, and collected their consent with appropriate consent forms. Interview duration ranged from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

To conduct the interviews we adopted a life narrative approach (McAdams, 1993), which consisted of asking the research participants to tell their life story since starting to drive by means of a ride-sharing platform. We also asked them to provide us with some context on their professional life, summarising what they had done before ride-sharing and the personal circumstances associated with the decision to start this occupation. We then let the research participants tell their own stories, intervening as little as possible. We had a list of topics that we wanted to discuss with them but did not use it as a formal interview grid; rather, we used prompts in their narratives and asked them to expand their answers on topics of interest. The main topics on our list were as follows: background, material conditions, occupational identity, experience of their legal classification, incentives and future personal prospects.

Data analysis

We used individual narratives to create ‘composite narratives’ (Sonenshein, 2010) that capture the identity work performed by ride-share drivers. Composite narratives are constructed by the researcher(s) to convey a sense of collective constructions and meaning (Sonenshein, 2010) and are aligned with our interpretive perspective. We followed Currie and Brown’s (2003) approach in the sense that ‘The narratives were not related to us in their entirety by any single member of either group. Rather, the data we collected yielded narrative fragments that we have pieced together into coherent stories’ (p. 569). In doing so, we were able to provide an interpretive account of how ride-share drivers make sense of their occupational identity, legal identity and material occupational conditions.

To construct our composite narrative, we reviewed each narrative looking for broad characteristics of individual narratives, in order to identify key patterns and develop an inductive classification (Sonenshein, 2010). We started structuring our composite narrative around the very broad categories that were the focus of the study, that is to say narratives around their experience of the legal classification, their occupational identity, the materiality of their occupation and narrative on how they related to their occupation. We then refined our categorisation, looking for segments of narratives that related to specific categories of identity work performed by our research participants. In doing so, we noted frequent associations between the occupational identity and the materiality of the occupation, which led us to regroup these two initial categories. Interestingly, we noted that in all research participants’ transcripts we could find narratives that could be captured with the idea of ‘trade-off’, underlining the tension between positive and negative elements within this new category.

We refined the category that grouped the narratives about legal categorisation, which led us to identify the three strategies of dissociation, rationalisation and distinction. Similarly, we found commonalities amongst the narratives used by some of our research participants to deal with the trade-off and construct self-narratives of their identity as ride-share drivers; we captured these commonalities in the form of four personas (Watson, 2008): the optimist, the hobbyist, the entrepreneur and the disenchanted.

While research participants often combined narratives from different categories, we feel it is useful to provide here a sense of the prevalence of the different narratives amongst our research participants. To do so, we note here how many research participants could be associated more directly with one of the tactics. As indicated above, all research participants produced a form of narrative around the trade-offs associated with ride-sharing. However, some profiles could be more closely associated with specific tactics relating to their legal classification: five for dissociation, seven for rationalisation and six for distantiation, while four were undecided (i.e. giving similar importance to several narratives). Similarly, some profiles were more closely associated with some of the personas: five for the optimist, five for the hobbyist, four for the entrepreneur and four for the disenchanted, while four were undecided. Again, we want to emphasise that this information is provided to give the reader an idea of the composition of our group of research participants and that there is no claim of representativeness.

Results

Navigating the ambiguities of their legal classification

Our research participants struggle to make sense of their legal classification and reconcile it with their work experience. They develop specific narratives to do so but are left with the feeling that they are really ‘in-between’ more established situations.

Dissociation

A first narrative through which our research participants reconcile the contradiction between their legal identity and the materiality of their work experience is that of dissociation. In their narratives, some of our research participants delineate clearly their legal classification as presented to them by the ride-sharing company and their own identity self-narrative about their experience:

Given that we’re the ones who generate the revenue for Uber, I see myself as an employee. However, the contractual arrangement is such that there is no scope whatsoever as far as they’re concerned for being defined as an employee. You are defined solely as a contractor. (E13)

It is interesting that the dissociation narrative was used both by research participants who experience themselves both as employees or contractors, for instance, and in contrast with the previous quote: ‘I treat myself as an independent contractor, so I feel that I’m an independent contractor. I don’t believe Uber treat us the way independent contractors are’ (E1).

While the dissociation narrative helps ride-share drivers to make sense of the discrepancies between their experience and their legal identity, it still leaves them in an ambiguous position that some of them chose to accept with fatalism:

So I – Uber – is the facilitator and I’m an employee. Under Australia law we are not contractors. But because they’re willing just to get people and people are willing to do it, no one’s kicking up a stink about that really. Yeah, but no, we’re not really employees, but we’re not really contractors. It’s one of those weird things. (E15)

Rationalisation

Some of our research participants produce narratives that we labelled ‘rationalisation’. In these narratives our research participants define themselves as either a contractor, an entrepreneur or running a business. A common trait in their narratives is that they tend to focus on one aspect of their occupation to rationalise their occupational identity by providing an ‘objective’ proof of their status. This rationalisation can come from attributes that are not there, for instance ‘I’m not an employee. They don’t insure me. Obviously, they don’t pay my superannuation’ (E6); or from concrete manifestations of their legal identity:

This is not a cash-in-hand job. It’s not something that–it’s a business. I think, effectively, I think you’re classed as a sole trader. So you have an ABN [Australian Business Number]. I’ll just pull up my spreadsheet. You have an ABN. You have to do your BAS [Business Activity Statement]. I do my BAS every month. (E3)

‘I take a business-like approach to this. I understand that I’ve got to keep my fuel costs as low as possible’ (E12).

While these narratives help our research participants to reconcile their legal classification with the experience of their occupation, it does not mean that they rationalise uncritically. Some participants underline how this new form of entrepreneurship can be perceived positively by others: ‘It’s good to hear [people] saying that it is positive. We’ve chosen to do this for a reason and I enjoy it. It’s good to see people that are happy about it’ (E1). Another positive perspective associates the status of entrepreneur with more freedom:

Well, I’ll work for myself that way; if anybody screws me around it’s going to be myself and that’s it. So I’ve started, since running my own company, and I’ve then gotten onto Uber and also more recently, this year, a company called GoCatch. (E4)

However, rationalisation also comes with narratives illustrating the limitation of this form of entrepreneurship, and not all participants value their status: ‘Obviously, I’ve had the whole stigma of family and friends saying “Why are you an Uber driver?” or “Why are you doing ride-share; shouldn’t you be looking at a career?”’ (E4). Our research participants also underline how this form of entrepreneurship can be the source of inequities:

Well, I do see myself as a contractor; I’m running a sole business and I treat it that way. I’ve got costs and whatnot and I weight it out. I think Uber are very conscious of that and take advantage of that to the nth degree. Almost to the point that they treat us like employees with the benefits of having contractors only. (E14)

Distantiation

A third group of narratives through which our research participants make sense of their legal classification strongly echoes the position defended by the ride-sharing companies. Basically, they accept that their activity is neither employment nor entrepreneurship, which implies a distantiation from existing legal categories. Mainly, they define themselves as ‘app users’ who operate in-between existing legal identities:

I think just as an app user, I suppose, yeah, because you’re not really employed by them. So I don’t really have a contract by them, but they just accept to make sure that I’ve got my medical checks done, my this and that. (E9)

Distantiation encompasses a positive narrative of freedom: ‘I just see myself as using what they’ve got to offer, really. Probably a little bit as a contractor but without any of the– I don’t have any restrictions on me whatsoever’ (E16); ‘How I saw this is you were a contractor – well an employee, really – but a contractor and if you didn’t like the terms and conditions, you walked’ (E2).

Making sense of the occupational identity and its materiality: A trade-off

In this section we report how our research participants make sense of their occupation – specifically, its advantages and drawbacks. They develop a picture of their occupation that is mixed and in which positive aspects are often meshed with limitations. Altogether, the narrative they develop about the occupational identity of ride-sharing is that of a trade-off where the freedom, material gain and social experience operate as compensation for more negative aspects of their experience of ride-sharing.

Ride-sharing is great

A frequent theme in our research participants’ narrative is their enjoyment of the freedom they had because of their occupation. This corresponded to two main aspects. First, they explained how they loved their independence and the fact that there were no bosses, sometimes comparing this situation with more classic jobs: ‘Oh, it’s the freedom. It’s the hands off. I mean, you’re really running– in many ways, you’re running your own business. I don’t have someone looking over my shoulder, telling me what to do’ (E21). Second, they conveyed their appreciation of the flexibility of an occupation in which they could decide when to work: ‘I can work my own hours; I can knock off and jump on whenever I want to; I’ve got total freedom’ (E16). Drivers also appreciate the incentive associated with some specific times or events:

Last weekend, for example, there was an incentive of a hundred dollars if you could do forty trips. […] So I went out again late Sunday arvo, early Sunday evening and it’s like, all right, I’ll get another four or five trips in and also snaffle myself a hundred bucks for nothing. (E7)

Of course, the financial incentive plays a key part in our research participants’ narrative, often associated with the ‘freedom’ that they could enjoy with the job: ‘It [can put beans] on the table, pay a few bills and the flexibility to work when I had the time’ (E5);

So it’s just [inaudible] financially. I literally need ten thousand dollars to get through Christmas, so–and I don’t quite have that in savings, so I’m basically working as much as I can and the kids are home from school so they’ll look after the baby until John gets home from work so that I can go out and get an early start and do extra hours. (E8)

Many presented ride-sharing as a flexible extra source of income, whether they had another job, were retired or studying:

It’s hard sometimes to be able to make extra savings just on a normal job [unclear] if you’ve got a rent, a mortgage and other thing and also because I’m from a developing country. The families also expect some little things from you, some little assistance from you, so you end up you’re also actually sending some money to be able to assist other people who are overseas. (E9)

‘I’m a retiree with just not quite enough dollars to be really– be able to go out for the coffees and things’ (E16). However, some saw the remuneration as an alternative to other low-paid jobs: ‘At the end of the day Uber pays double than what I was getting with Vodafone, so I’m more than happy to do that’ (E4).

Finally, the ride-share drivers we interviewed also enjoyed the social experience of ride-sharing, often mentioning it as a very positive element they associated with ride-sharing: ‘The social interaction was great, that was interesting. You get a mixture of riders in your car. […] A lot of people do this because they generally enjoy driving and meeting people, which is no different for me’ (E12). They would also mention this as a key driver for them, wanting to ‘get out of the house’ and to have a social experience that differed from their usual experience in their day job or being at home: ‘The reason I did it was a mixture of curiosity, had nothing to do on a Friday or Saturday night; I’m married with twin six-year-old girls’ (E2).

But it is a trade-off

While they explain in their narratives the positive social experience, the flexibility and the material importance of their occupation, our research participants are also critical of it. Their discourse also presents it as a trade-off where the occupation, because of its specificities, also has less positive implications. Ride-share drivers express how they have learnt to lower their expectations and see that as part of the compromise they have accepted:

I don’t expect to get paid minimum wage. […] Like, I don’t expect holiday. I’m okay with that because of the fact of the flexibility. I think it’s the price that I pay to be able to log on when I want and for how long I want. (E3)

Some even explain how they consider this as part of the arrangement and wouldn’t want it to change:

But I know in England they’ve been demanding for contracts, to be contracted. No, I don’t think that I would demand to be on a contract or to be considered as an employee. I think it works this way to be able to work as a part-time and I’m still happy with it, but not to be considered to get holiday hours and all break hours, no. (E9)

Drivers are also conscious of the risks associated with freedom and flexibility. This concerns various aspects of their occupation. First, they raise the asymmetry of a situation where they have to invest in a car but could be fired with no notice by the ride-sharing company:

But I met one guy who bought a car, got himself– and got a loan car and his ratings were going down and he was worried [about being] kicked off the platform and then he couldn’t pay for the car and he was going to get himself into a whole lot of bother. (E2)

I know of at least one guy who was deactivated. He tried to request why he was deactivated and, again, Uber were trying to hide behind these privacy laws where they wouldn’t tell him why he was deactivated, they wouldn’t tell him what trip it was, they wouldn’t tell him what he’s been accused of, they wouldn’t tell him anything, and they gave him no option to try and get back on the system. (E10)

Some drivers also express that the incentive schemes limit their sense of freedom: ‘In the terms of choosing when you work, that’s one hundred per cent up to you. They’ve never, ever done anything other than to try and manipulate you through incentives and surge to get you online outside of that’ (E14).

Second, this fear associated with the occupation is also reinforced by practices of the industry that make drivers feel disposable or replaceable: ‘There’s a huge lot of people coming in and out of the system, so we’re quite replaceable’ (E17). Finally, they are also conscious of the uncertain future of the industry, notably with the introduction of self-driven cars, a process informed directly by their occupation:

I don’t necessarily resent that but it’s interesting again that you’re not defined as an employee yet you’re providing them not only with their revenue but with an awful lot of information that they use. The common wisdom – and Uber doesn’t say this – but the common wisdom is that the main purpose for them to collect so much data about driving and so on is to assist in programming driverless cars in the future. (E13)

Dealing with the trade-off: Constructing a self-narrative of their identity as a ride-share driver

The interviews revealed that the drivers had to conduct identity work to construct identity narratives that reconciled the difficulty to the material outcome and the value of their activity with their occupational identity. We capture the resulting self-narratives of their identity as ride-share drivers in the form of four personas: the optimist, the hobbyist, the entrepreneur and the disenchanted.

The optimist

In a first narrative that emerged from the interview transcripts, our research participants depict themselves as preparing for a brighter future, which we capture with the persona of the optimist. For the optimists, being a ride-share driver was not really who they were and did not represent their main goal:

I mean, for me, it’s a bridging process to another career, and still keeping the income without– it still pays. I mean, I still gotta work. […] I’m going back to uni next year to study psychology and physio so I’m looking to be a sports psychologist so it’s actually, it’s kind of my interest. (E1)

Their narrative about their future could include an entrepreneurial endeavour:

I decided to slow down my workload at my usual job, to start my own business and, I guess, recover from an illness I was experiencing at the time. So I felt Uber would be a good Plan B, in case I needed some money during the process of setting up business and then getting better. (E11)

Our analysis shows that the narratives associated with the persona of the optimist could correspond to a broad spectrum of situations, some of which seem more precarious than others. For instance, some ride-share drivers had clear plans or even were already transitioning out of Uber into their new activity: ‘Uber allowed me to leave the old job and focus on my freelancing stuff, which eventually did work up to become the main source of income’ (E11). However, others were stuck in an occupation that they didn’t consider ‘normal’ or had much vaguer plans for their future:

At that time, I was working full-time so I was doing it part-time. Then I got made redundant from my full-time job about sixteen months ago and since then I’ve been doing it full-time. […] How do you begin to explain that, well, I’m desperate to get back into the normal workforce? I’ve been applying for jobs, having interviews, and twice this year getting to the point where I’ve had potential employers turn around and say to me, ‘You’re a great candidate but you’re our second choice’. (E13) I was out in the country having my own businesses which unfortunately went under and then had to come to the city to look for work. I mean, I’m a business person and I’m pretty entrepreneurial, so I’ve got options and I’ll go through those myself. You’re always looking for opportunities. […] I think you’re always looking for options and looking for ways out of the system, so you’re always looking at what your next step might be, moving away from Uber. (E18)

The hobbyist

In a second persona, our research participants describe themselves as part-timers, almost hobbyists, who have Uber on the side. It can mean that they prioritise the material aspect but only for pocket money, an extra income they don’t rely on, something they do on the side but that is not their ‘real’ occupation: ‘It’s a perfect job for someone like me that just wants to do it around the family and stuff’ (E8). It means they can take the activity lightly and enjoy the experience:

Now, luckily, I’m starting to get some more regular work it is purely pocket money and I enjoy it [laughs]. I actually– sometimes I think ‘Oh, I just feel like I might duck out for a couple of hours and make a few bucks’ but also just do something which I enjoy. […] So, since about September, I backed off a fair bit doing Uber because I’ve been able to enjoy some proper revenue, if you like, from my real job. (E5)

However, beyond the material conditions, the hobbyist persona also incorporates a discourse that describes the very specific role that ride-sharing plays in the life of some of our research participants, where driving is a hobby or an entertainment for them, a distraction from their day-to-day life:

So I thought it might be a way to burn a bit of time. My wife still works part-time, so I usually work Uber when she’s at work. So it gets me out of the house, earns a little bit of extra income – beer money – to keep me going. (E21)

In the following narrative, money is nice but distraction is even more important:

I work with mental health with people that have got really severe mental illnesses, so when I go back to Uber, it’s a little bit breaking up the hard job that I do and then just meeting up different people that you meet up along the road. Most people are really friendly, actually. They’re really friendly. […] I don’t really rely on it; it actually goes into a separate account that I usually don’t touch. Yeah. (E9)

The entrepreneur

We identified another persona, that of the entrepreneur. However, this persona is based on a narrative about multiple businesses. Our research participants explain how they combine ride-sharing with other activities, whether it is driving in other contexts or activities in other industries:

I work for another company. I work for another couple of companies but I do a bit of work for a company called GPU, which is like an airport transfer company. They do workers’ comp work as well. So they – we – take people who’ve been injured at work to specialist appointments and things like that. I tend to do that in the day and I work Uber at night, I tend to. (E17)

However, it is important to note that drivers who develop this narrative also mention that, in order to make it ‘work’, they do not include all the costs in their business model. They underline that their ride-sharing activity only offers limited capability for saving, superannuation for retirement or healthcare:

I’d be able to get super payments which, actually, if you– it’s these little things that you don’t think about until you’re working for them that you’re like, ‘Oh geez, I should be putting away the nine or ten per cent away for super’. […] What I would have allocated for super would then have to go back into the maintenance of the car to ensure I could still keep working. So, in some weeks I’m able to put money aside, and other weeks I’m not. (E4)

‘I also would love to have super and holiday pay and things like that […] I’d love to. You don’t have your holiday pay; you can’t just take time off and expect to be paid’ (E17). In such a context some drivers accept the situation, while others plan to shift their activity to other businesses:

That’s something [other businesses] that I’m really looking to get more involved in because I realise that, with Uber, the amount of money I’m actually netting is really pitiful compared to– by being more pro-active with these two other businesses, I can actually make reasonably good money. (E12)

The disenchanted

In that last persona, our research participants express that ‘ride-sharing is not valuable enough to me’. The narratives associated with this persona mesh ethical reservations and material considerations about the revenue structure of the activity. Research participants who adopt this narrative explain not only how the financial conditions associated with ride-sharing are not sustainable, but also their judgement of such a situation:

The dollars just didn’t add up. By the time you put everything into perspective, it just [didn’t add up]. I’m more than happy to go through that in more detail. I took a more philosophical attitude to how I felt the ride-sharing economy and things were working. My curiosity– I had satisfied my curiosity into how this economy worked and started. I guess the left-wing side of me started to come out and started to question the morality of it, if that makes any sense. (E2)

Another ride-share driver explains how the model adopted has consequences beyond them individually:

I, I’m starting to really fear this corporate culture of using ‘contract work’ – in quotation marks – as employees but controlling their pay. […] What we’ve got with Uber is the situation where they’ve got – in quotation marks – ‘employees’ who don’t have the right to dispute losing their job, who don’t have access to holiday pay, sick leave and all that, who don’t– who can’t negotiate their hourly rates or any rates, unlike any other contractor, and who are forced by Uber to perform their job in certain ways. […] I’m worried that this kind of employment will leak into other industries, like I think it already has with Deliveroo, Sherpa and Foodora. They work on the same model. I didn’t want to be part of that culture or this whole thing. I kind of even felt guilty. Like, what have I done, joining this business that is undermining our minimum wage here by using some loophole with contract work? (E11)

As summarised bluntly by one of our research participants: ‘So that kind of takes away from the enjoyment of it, knowing that, in my words, I’m basically Uber’s bitch’ (E12).

Discussion

Our research objective was to explore the identity work of gig workers to construct coherent narratives that reconcile their legal employment classification, their occupational identity and the materiality of their activity. To do so, we collected personal narratives of ride-share drivers in Australia. Our contribution is twofold. First we uncover the narratives that gig workers use, in order to construct a coherent discourse that accommodates the trade-offs that their occupation involves. In particular, the self-narratives they developed allowed them to construct a positive representation of gig work by making it temporary. This reveals the specificity of the identity work conducted by gig workers in comparison with other work situations such as classic employment or independent contractor. Second, the narratives we collected provide an understanding of the experience of gig workers. We coin the term ‘sub-entrepreneur’ to reflect on the implications of our findings in relation to the future of gig workers, gig work and gig platforms in our societies.

Our study uncovers the identity work performed by the gig workers we interviewed. Our research participants were able to deal with the tension resulting from a disputed legal classification by adopting three main narratives that they sometimes combined: dissociation, rationalisation and distantiation. However, they also developed narratives that helped them accept the tension resulting from their status and their lack of control over the terms and conditions of their work. This identity work we capture in terms of trade-off. Together, these narratives suggest that they partially, but only partially, accepted their terms and conditions as a trade-off where, for instance, freedom had a price attached to it. However, their narratives also showed that they conducted further identity work to develop a self-narrative that allowed them to deal with the identity tensions associated with their occupation. We captured these narratives under four personas that we labelled the optimist, the hobbyist, the entrepreneur and the disenchanted. In all cases, such narratives incorporated the idea that, precarious as it was, gig work was only a temporary episode or a marginal activity: the optimists were using gig work to prepare for a brighter future, the entrepreneurs had other business in mind and the disenchanted were already moving on. The hobbyists were also disengaged from the work, considering it as a welcome addition to their life that suited them in their current situation.

Our findings show the contrast between the identity work performed by gig workers when compared with that conducted by ‘true’ employees or ‘true’ independent entrepreneurs. Extant research has shown that, although not necessarily straightforward, often involving the modification of available scripts (Watson, 2008), the identity work of workers employed in an organisation is oriented towards positioning themselves in relation to the dominant organisational discourse (Petriglieri et al., 2018; Watson, 2008). By contrast, independent contractors, lacking the resources provided by an organisational context, conduct identity work that helps them to create their own holding environment. Our research participants are in a different situation where they struggle to reconcile the discourse of gig platforms on entrepreneurship with the actual terms and conditions of their work. They only partially integrate the rhetoric provided by the gig platforms on the trade-off that comes with the occupation, and conduct identity work that helps them make sense of their activity as temporary or marginal. This is an important contribution since, to our knowledge, this type of identity work has not been described before. While this type of identity work is likely to happen in other sectors of the gig economy, we acknowledge that it might not be specific to this type of work. It might well be that workers in other low-paid jobs with limited control over their conditions develop similar narratives. Future research could thus further study the matter and compare gig work with other precarious activities that have similarities but operate under an employment classification.

Additionally, our study provides an understanding of the experience of gig workers. In particular, we show that the narrative developed by our research participants led a vast majority of them to discard ride-sharing as a full-time activity. This was due to a variety of reasons which included ethical reservations, social pressure and material conditions. We use the term ‘sub-entrepreneurship’ to capture the questions raised by these findings. We define sub-entrepreneurs as workers operating under the legal classification of independent contractors but deprived of some of the key elements of control over their activity, with this type of work usually associated with low pay and minimal conditions. We use the term ‘sub-entrepreneur’ as we contend that it better conveys a ‘lesser status’ to micro-entrepreneurs or even working-class entrepreneurs. The impact of sub-entrepreneurism is not limited to the individual engaging in it. The societal benefits of traditional entrepreneurism are also missing, specifically the broader benefits that accrue with the growth of businesses.

Our results show that the normalisation and generalisation of sub-entrepreneurship through the expansion of the gig economy should not be taken for granted. While Dubal’s (2017: 120) study of immigrant ride-share and taxi drivers found that ‘being an independent contractor reaffirmed their otherwise lost sense of control, freedom and power’, in our study the experience of sub-entrepreneurship did not necessarily enable the construction of an identity narrative simply based on ‘silver lining’ characteristics of entrepreneurialism, freedom and control. Rather, the experience was more ambiguous and the narratives constructed by drivers to make sense of their occupational and legal classification reflected a critical assessment of the trade-offs they made with regard to material outcomes, flexibility and social experience.

There was a perception amongst our interviewees that it was difficult to create the equivalent of a full-time wage out of ride-share driving. However, even though it is an important factor, the material conditions are not the only factors to be taken into account. Perceptions of the social status of ride-share driving were also important, as were ethical concerns about the business models underpinning work in the gig economy. This means that a model based on sub-employment remuneration and conditions is likely to be limited to supplemental income rather than supplant more established contractor or employment relationships.

That is, the benefits associated with the flexibilities of sub-entrepreneurism are not enough to prompt the construction of more durable identities that justify a long-term commitment to this type of gig work. Consequently, despite predictions about the growth of ‘gig’ work (Pash, 2017), the gig economy will likely have to offer material conditions superior to those currently offered in the non-gig sector or suffer from the marginalisation of its workforce. That is, when the economy is strong, gig work is likely to continue at the fringes of the labour market as supplemental income or as an option for individuals seeking short-term solutions to temporary employment situations. However, it should also be acknowledged that the fragmentation (Weil, 2014) of modern labour markets means that, for some workers, gig work may be central to their working lives, for example workers who are excluded from other areas of the labour market by virtue of race, gender or qualifications.

Of course, as has been regularly articulated in both scholarship (Minter, 2017; Schor, 2017) and media commentary (Martin, 2018; Paddenburg, 2018), regardless of the scale, the persistence of work that is remunerated essentially by ‘task’ creates a downward pressure on labour standards that potentially undermines the wages and conditions of non-gig workers. This potential forms part of the argument against the creation of a new category of worker in various jurisdictions to overcome definitional ambiguities referred to earlier (Harris and Krueger, 2015; Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Specifically, creating a legal category of worker that is ‘less than’ an employee but not quite a contractor may cement an inferior set of entitlements for a particular cohort of workers (Eisenbrey and Mishel, 2016).

While the categorisation of gig workers has dominated the debate about the responses to gig work, little attention has been paid to the organisational implications of assembling a workforce within which individuals see themselves neither as classic entrepreneurs (as their work does not build their own business) nor as employees. That is, gig work experienced and understood in the manner described by participants in our study introduces a dilemma for organisations that is more generally associated with the management of traditional employment relationships and human resource management. Specifically, how do you gain and maintain the commitment of workers to ensure the quality provision of your service when this business imperative seems incompatible with a gig workforce whose own understanding of their identity is that of liminal or marginalised organisational participants?

Conclusion

Digital platform operators have chosen to perpetuate the myth of entrepreneurialism as a key characteristic of those who carry out work on their behalf, prompting policy debate about how such workers should be classified. However, this essentially legal argument obscures the lived experience of those workers, who develop a variety of narratives in order to make sense of their ambiguous status. This ambiguity has implications for the organisational commitment of gig workers who are sub-entrepreneurs rather than classic entrepreneurs, and suggests two alternative options for how digital service providers might develop and maintain a quality service.

The first implication is that digital platform service providers recognise and address the material, ethical and social barriers that limit the desire of gig workers to identify unreservedly as independent entrepreneurs and so draw gig workers in from the fringes of labour market participation to become valued organisational contributors. Our study shows that while currently gig workers conduct identity work that drives them to accept that gig work takes place at the fringe of their life and is not meant to last, they also appreciate many aspects of gig work. In particular, they are especially attracted to the relative freedom and autonomy associated with gig work. However, they also enjoy the activity in itself and the social dimension that comes with it. While our results suggest that they partially accept the trade-off as presented by the rhetoric of gig-economy platforms, they also develop narratives that indicate they have not been duped; they are aware of the risks and of the lack of a future for their employment. While this can serve the purpose of the current business model of the platform economy, where the race to a monopoly situation is based on saturating the market at low cost, this strategic situation might change. If it does, addressing the main concerns of gig workers that we have presented – mainly their wages and conditions, but also some perspective on their future in the industry and the ethics of the dominant business model – could lead to a shift in an occupational identity associated with temporary and precarious work towards a legitimate occupation with a future. This would mean that, in such a context, developing a new classification for gig workers or solutions to address a continuum rather than a dichotomy could be considered. That would go a long way in addressing the tensions that result from the discrepancies for gig workers between their legal classification and their lack of control over the terms and conditions of their work. It would also address the ethical concerns of workers and others in society who do not want to participate in activities that undermine the balance of our social systems.

The second implication is that digital platform service providers continue the trajectory that has begun, namely, providing their services through ‘partnerships’ with ‘sub-entrepreneurs’ that avoid the liability for employee entitlement but seek to uphold service quality by maintaining more control than if the workers were truly free to be entrepreneurial. Whether this option is viable from a business model perspective is beyond the scope of this article. However, our findings show that the terms and conditions provided are considered by workers not only from an individual economic perspective; workers are also conscious of the risks associated with the activity, the lack of future prospects and the ethical limitations of the model. The ethical questioning of the business model could be one of the key limitations to the expansion of the gig economy in this option, one that should be taken seriously if digital platform service providers want to continue the initial growth of the gig economy in general and the ride-share sector in particular, that has been fostered by the attractiveness of new offerings.

These options have different public costs. The first could see the development of a truly flexible and attractive alternative to ongoing direct employment. The second sees a continuation of downward pressure that undermines the labour standards upon which our social contract is built.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Emmanuel Josserand is a Professor of Management at UTS and Director of the Centre for Business and Social Innovation (CBSI). His research focuses on intra- and inter-organisational networks, including in relation to identity work in such networks. Emmanuel has managed and participated in many projects of applied and fundamental research including ARC linkage, CRC, Swiss National Foundation project, EU projects and contract research. Emmanuel was formerly co-Director of the Centre for Management and Organisation Studies at UTS. Before joining UTS, he was a Professor at University of Geneva where he served as the Head of the Steering Committee for the PhD in Management, the Director, Executive MBA and the Delegate of the Rectorate for e-learning. Prior to that he was an Associate Professor at Paris-Dauphine University. He has a strong international publication track record with more than 100 scientific publications, including books and peer reviewed journals. He also has extensive experience in consulting as an independent adviser or in partnership with several consulting firms in Paris and Geneva.

Sarah Kaine is currently Research Director: Future of Work, Organising and Enterprise in the Centre for Business and Social Innovation (University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Business School). Sarah is active on a number of boards. She is a founding Director of the McKell Institute, and is a member of the advisory group for the Centre for Future Work and of UTS Council. Sarah is interested in innovation in employment relations and regulation – beyond the bounds of traditional labour law, corporate social responsibility and its link to industrial relations and the regulation of labour standards in domestic and international supply chains. Specifically, Sarah has explored possibilities for regulatory alternatives in a number of industrial contexts, including publicly funded care service provision and in privately controlled road transport. Her current research explores multi-stakeholder regulation of domestic and international supply chains, and work in and regulation of the digitally enabled economy. Sarah’s research has appeared in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Human Resource Management Journal, Australian Journal of Labour Law and the Journal of Industrial Relations. Prior to becoming an academic Sarah worked as an industrial relations practitioner and a consultant to not-for-profit organisations.

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